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MILITARY OFFICER
JULY 2016 $4.75 THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF MOAA | NEVER STOP SERVINGTM
WWW.MOAA.ORG PresencePacific
Between China’s man-made islands and budget-driven reductions in military
assets, America must navigate a path in the Asia-Pacific region 46
“
exclusion zones around China’s territorial claims
threatens a lot of people’s lunch.
—Maj. Dr. Kim M. Doxey, USAF (Ret)
”
Enforcement of economic
Pacific Premonition For four years, from 1990 until my retirement in 1994, I was a political military aff airs analyst for the Pacifi c Air Force [headquarters] at Hickam AFB, Hawaii. My primary area of focus was the countries around the South China Sea and the Spratly and Paracel Islands. During that time, I authored and ed- ited numerous working papers on the threat to the stability to the region due to the unprecedented extraterritorial claims by China in the South China Sea [noted in “Resourcing the Rebalance,” July 2016]. The most alarming point was their total refusal to negotiate on their claims and the equally valid claims of other nations in the region. Neither would they compromise on access and fi shing rights in the area.
While gas and oil and sea-bed miner-
als are at stake, over 80 percent of the animal protein consumed in this region comes from the South China Sea. En- forcement of economic exclusion zones around China’s territorial claims threat- ens a lot of people’s lunch. Our offi ce warned of the growing
threat of China to the stability of the re- gion in a time (1990) when their ability to project a military force was limited. While the fi rst Bush administration was aware of the issue, they did nothing about it. The Clinton administration re- fused to entertain the idea of this reality to the point of tacit support of China’s adventurism in the area, as well as their technological upgrade, and expansion of their military. Now they are a serious military threat to all the other nations in the region.
I am glad the threat is now being taken
seriously. I just hope it’s not too late. —Maj. Dr. Kim M. Doxey, USAF (Ret) Life Member
Tallahassee, Fla. 10 MILITARY OFFICER SEPTEMBER 2016
As a retired fi eld artilleryman with 30 years of service with 13 years overseas, including a combat tour in Vietnam, two years in Australia, and eight years in South Asia (four diff erent tours), I enjoyed the “Partnerships in the Asia- Pacifi c” article which appeared in the July issue of Military Offi cer. I do, how- ever, have an error to which to call your attention.
On page 58, retired Air Force Lt. Gen.
Dan “Fig” Leaf describes “a maritime dispute in the Bay of Bengal between Chile and Peru” that had been settled. While there have been maritime disputes aplenty in the Bay of Bengal, they have involved Bangladesh versus India or Burma. Chile and Peru do indeed have a maritime dispute, but it is [off the west- ern coast of South America,] thousands of miles away from the Bay of Bengal. — Col. Russell V. Olson Jr., USA (Ret) Life Member Davidson, N.C.
Pentagon Budget Woes I’d like to enlighten by example [the comment from Col. Stanley E. Zeitz, USAF (Ret), “Ignorance and Bureau- cracy,” Your Views,] in the July issue of Military Offi cer that “the average major Pentagon acquisition is 40 percent over budget.” In 1980, I was a project management
offi cer on a major multiservice and agency computer communications acqui- sitions program. The program manager tasked my team to come up with an ac- quisition plan that would deliver the sys- tem on a cost and schedule that we were 100-percent confi dent could be achieved. At that time, it was well-known that
most DoD projects were nearly always 50-percent cost overrun and behind schedule from the start. Graduate stu- dents in business schools wrote articles
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